1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless telecommunication devices that have the capability to send or receive “through the air” radio signaling respectively to and from other compatible wireless devices.
More particularly, it concerns novel “restricted use technology” that is integrally based and sourced from the platform of a cellular phone. The phone system has the unique capacity to distinguish between the driver and any passenger(s) occupying a vehicle in transit and thereby specifically preclude that driver from undertaking any phone activities that redirect their attention from the roadway and the safe operation of their vehicle.
Any phone so equipped with the blocking technology of this invention will provide the highway traveling public with protection from the dangers generated by a “driver” of any model or mode of vehicle whom is distracted by his or her own irresponsible and self-serving effort to view and utilize these wireless devices while the vehicular platform they are operating is detected as being “in motion” and traveling upon any roadway anywhere in the world.
These restrictive technologies are inclusive of, but not limited to, phone motion and orientation sensing that is applied in collaborative combination with a novel mandate for the phone user to maintain specific orientation and grasp requirements upon the phone. In particular, simultaneous body contact “must be maintained” upon and against designated contact areas situated upon and integral to a landscape oriented cellular phone in order to temporarily nullify the underlying “keystroke blocking capabilities” of the encoded “restricted use” programming.
The terms phone, cellular phone, wireless device, wireless phone, telecommunications device, personal digital assistant, radiophone, etc., are considered to be generally synonymous and thereby are used interchangeably throughout this specification.
The degree of danger represented by any driver that sits behind the steering wheel of a moving vehicle while attempting to text or otherwise execute keystrokes upon a wireless device, is extremely high.
These inattentive and often unlawful misuses of the ubiquitous numbers of cellular phones, and other wireless telecommunications devices that currently enjoy such a popular and ever increasing permeation within our global community, has become a major problem bearing tragic repercussions.
The danger manifests itself as the driver attempts to execute “attention diverting” keystrokes or finger swipes upon the virtual display of a wireless device in order to send text messages or to initiate any other mind/hand/sight coordinated type of touchpad data entry upon his phone while operating a vehicle that is in motion.
While being transported within that inappropriately operated vehicle, hazards are mutually incurred by the driver and passengers alike as well as for any of the journeying public encountered upon the roadway.
In order to limit these dangers, the present invention incorporates novel phone design modifications for grasping the wireless device and uniquely integrates them with specialized hardware and software applications within and upon the phone platform. These distinctive phone architecture arrangements provide for the automatic execution of “conditional use” blocking technologies that are selectively “manufacturer encoded” with instructions for placing display and keystroke entry restrictions upon designated programs of the phone when motion of the carrier vehicle has been verified through sensors.
The restrictive technology only applies to the specific programs/applications within the phone's menu that have been preselected and particularly chosen to be encoded with the blocking instructions. Correspondingly, the entire package of sensing and tracking technologies are only initiated and only become active upon a “restricted” program/application being opened. This precludes the wireless device from unnecessarily searching for a collaborative network signal for determining vehicular movement should a non-restricted program be opened thereby minimizing battery depletion.
Henceforward, it is requested to be understood that for the restrictive technology described for the present invention whereby the driver of a moving vehicle can be blocked from viewing and/or the physical entry of data upon opening and attempting to use a restricted program, that the terms keystroke, finger swipe, voice commands, or any other implementation method(s) such as a stylus, touchpad, trackball, mouse, joystick, etc., are included within the scope of the novel protection sought by this application.
These or other input techniques are to be considered as interchangeable terms without limitation for describing the interface methods available for human input upon the proposed wireless device. The acceptance or denial of these input methods will be directly managed by the device's pre-programmed and/or subsequently downloaded internal instructions. The prevailing directives are administered without user input or choice for the restriction of data entry, display navigation, or how they are to be used as “limiting” screen and/or program control tools.
It is also to be recognized that the present invention will be primarily described for use with wireless devices that have computer generated virtual displays and keyboards but also has iterations that are proficiently used to either allow or block human interface and input upon a non-virtual keyboard having “real” individual keys such as phones having a landscape oriented layout of physical keys. Phones possessing these types of physical keypads would still follow, conform, and operate similarly to those having computer generated keyboards and screens per the restrictive phone programming, physical adaptations, grasp requirements, and operational parameters exclusive to this invention that will be described and further defined in forthcoming detail.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Numerous prior art solutions employ motion tracking for the vehicle and/or the wireless device in combination with various methods for restricting data entry when it has been determined that the vehicle transporting the wireless device is in motion. However, none accomplish the desired blocking of imprudent keystroke entry through a unique combination of motion, orientation, and grasp detection capabilities that are mutually stationed and staged upon the physical platform of the wireless device itself, as does the present invention.
Newer wireless devices offer automated “speak and type” capabilities where spoken words are converted to written text and are a step up from the physical entry of text manually. However, these devices are still a very real and significant mental distraction since they must redirect the mental focus of the driver to compose and interpret each portion of the ongoing back and forth texting communication. The obscure danger belying such devices equipped with the capability for voice conversion and automated keyboard entry is that they may seem safe and thereby actually “encourage” texting and driving.
When you allow for the time required to review and correct transcription errors for these devices, voice entered text can be as lengthy a process as regular texting while still consuming a significant portion of the users' mental attention. An April, 2013 published study conducted by researchers at the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M found “that sending text messages via voice while driving is just as dangerous as texting with fingers”.
Spoken word to text conversion is an enabling technology versus the disabling technology employed by the current invention that blocks the phone user from having the option to continue an incorrect and dangerous behavior. Doing things that are possible are not always good reasons to do them. Just because voice to text conversion technology exists and makes “texting and driving” easier and more proficient, it is certainly not sufficient reason to encourage drivers to continue a self elected “distracted driver” activity or persuade others to begin.
Driving safety enthusiasts everywhere that work daily toward achieving increased driver alertness and overall roadway safety will certainly disagree with any technological premise that places extraneous demands upon the mental awareness of any driver, including the most vulnerable, inexperienced, and most likely age group to embrace and engage in such ongoing social discourse while driving, our youth.
Other technologies are available to phone users whom are fully aware and cognizant of the dangers of texting and driving and desire to pledge their compliance to not conduct any such imperiled activity. The “It Can Wait” campaign is approved by various phone manufacturers and/or service providers and promotes a restrictive application that can be downloaded that will reduce the temptation to text and drive by delaying reception of texts but still allows the user to elect to override the restrictive state. Although highly useful and of noble intent, this program does not provide a solution that prevents phone users that don't or won't recognize the inherent dangers of texting and driving from simply electing to turn off the prevailing restrictive state, such as a teenager of a parent pledged to the program might choose to do while driving independent of parental supervision.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,508,379, demonstrates a restrictive system that operates under a prevailing state of blocking activity that is activated upon positive identification of vehicle/phone motion. However, in that system the blocking activity can also be temporarily “turned off” upon the phone user successfully completing “visually and mentally involved” challenges or finger executed contact upon randomly displayed points appearing on opposing sides of an imaginary division line of the phone's virtual screen. Contact upon these random points appearing upon the screen is “momentary” in duration and switches off the blocking activity that permits unabated keystroke entry from that point with no further blocking conditions in force.
Comparing that to the present invention where execution of the temporary removal of the prevailing blocking activity is not a mentally or visually demanding task and is as simple as picking up the phone, retaining it, and using it. The phone is picked up in a landscape orientation and retained with a qualifying hand grasp that is executed upon “actual” permanently located contact areas that have fixed “intimately known” spacing upon the body of the phone itself. The hand or hands are then used to enter keystrokes while maintaining the previously established phone orientation and grasp conditions.
US Pub. No. 2010/0297930, employs sensory strips on the phone casing but does not couple and apply their use in conjunction with the disablement of some of the phone's orientations for viewing the virtual screen. In the present invention landscape orientation is in fact the sole orientation permitted for keystroke entry while the vehicle is in motion.
Schwartz, et al. (Schwartz) U.S. Pat. No. 8,527,140 concerns usage of a phone to sense vibration patterns indicating a vehicle with the engine running or not. However the sensory vibrations are net applied toward defeating all texting and driving which in general includes all passengers in the vehicle. While Schwartz does discuss a complicated data collection and processing to distinguish between a driver and passenger it would seem unreliable and impractable and it is not clear how such data collections and processing could be used since the vibration from running engine is used to deactivate the portable device.
In the subject invention, the contact areas are tangible phone based components integral to the phone casing and never exist as virtual objects displayed upon a screen.
Even more relevant is the fact that the human initiated contact is not a short term “momentary” interval of execution. Nor does it require any disruptive mental response to a “vision based task” or physical challenge which can be self-imposed distractions with negative “attention divertive” ramifications comparable to “texting and driving” itself.
A proper qualifying grasp is instead instinctively performed by retaining the phone in certain mandated orientations and ergonomic configurations that demand involvement of both hands of the phone user. The user then “elects” to maintain that qualifying grasp for as long as they desire to enter keystrokes on their phone while being transported within a moving vehicle.
A “continuous” application of human body contact has to be maintained in an enduring non-interrupted manner upon the “known” non-virtual contact areas to override the blocking activity. The permissive state for entering keystrokes upon the phone only lasts as long as that grasping task remains successfully executed and maintained.
That fact is extremely important since in the preceding exampled prior art, a passenger may successfully complete any questions, codes, or hand/finger manipulations to turn off the blocking activity and then pass the “keystroke enabled” phone to the driver. That scenario is not possible with the current invention due to “mandating” the maintenance of a continuous chain of qualifying orientation and hand grasp across the phone contacts. Should this chain of contact be broken as the phone is passed from the passenger to the driver, then keystroke entry will be instantly be blocked and require the two handed grasp to enable use of the phone upon it reaching the driver's hands. More importantly, even if a qualifying hand grasp were to be successfully transferred, the driver still would be unable to maintain it concurrent with steering the vehicle.
The maintenance or the breaking of these chain of grasp intervals may be explained, defined, and/or made better understood to the user through displayed information upon the phone's virtual screen that conveys the current status of the phone. The information may be in the form of screen messages, display of the keyboard in unique ways, or visual numeric time countdowns coupled with audible pulses that appear or are heard indicating a blocking activity is either being initiated or removed in reaction to and in parallel with elective actions that the user has respectively taken or may take toward the control and operation of his phone.
It is important to understand that these indicative methods and blocking states are all only realized should the phone be utilized within a vehicle that is sensed as being “in motion”. The majority of the time, all of the restrictive technology and related indicative methods lie dormant in the background and will only come into play upon that user stepping into a vehicle and opening a restricted program of his phone and attempting to enter keystrokes and otherwise operate that phone while that vehicle has been put into motion at a speed falling within a predetermined and set range of rate of speed.
It is also highly pertinent and of particular importance that no other technology for restricting keystrokes upon a phone being used within a moving vehicle combines active and passive methods for controlling the application of the blocking technology as does the present invention.
Description for both methods will be elaborated upon in later detail however active control and prevention is congruent with a blocking command being issued due to an improper orientation or grasp of the phone. Passive control is only relevant to one particular texting configuration whereby the phone user is not able to text and drive due to the universal limitation of a human being having only two hands. In this texting position, passive control is not the issuance of a definitive black and white command for the initiation of a blocking action. Instead passive control means that the driver is forced to abandon his attempt to text and drive due to the fact he has no free hand available to steer the vehicle simultaneous with entering keystrokes while adhering to the demands of the current technology for holding the phone in this particular texting position. Conversely, any passengers traveling within the same vehicle can easily employ this identical texting position to enter text freely due to their not having the additional burden of having to steer the vehicle.
A number of other prior art systems utilize technology dependent upon basing some portion of their text restrictive system upon the vehicle and phone alike. This increased complexity and expense introduces higher reliability problems and suffers in comparison to the proposed restrictive technology being located exclusively upon the phone platform with absolutely no alteration or addition necessary to the vehicle itself. Not only does this avail use of the blocking technology for any make or model of vehicle but more broadly includes any type or model of transit platform where the operator utilizes a steering wheel, or some other method and variation of vehicular guidance structure, or steering motion other than pivoting about its own axis, to control the direction of the steerage.
It is common sense that a more practical and reliable method is needed for intervening the hazardous actions taken by a driver of a “moving” vehicle whom makes the conscious choice to split his focus between the vital job of observing the roadway to instead conduct the reckless physical or vocal entry of keystrokes upon a wireless device. The more logical and effective approach is simply to “block” the driver's ability to text, e-mail, or navigate the internet while the vehicle is moving. Conducting any such personal messaging or research activity can and should be delayed until the first opportunity presents itself to stop the vehicle in order to initiate the desired wireless communicative action.
Additionally, and very importantly, none of the prior art technological systems proposed as solutions for the problem of distracted driving offers the simplicity, reliability, and low cost that the keystroke restrictive system of the present invention offers.